'I've realized it's a condo for pigeons': neighbours hope for park, Tim Hortons in place of Capital Pointe hole

Taxpayers could pay for Capital Pointe fill The City of Regina could be digging itself a hole when it comes to taxpayers money. Cally Stephanow reports.

At the end of October, downtown Regina will have a new look. The hole located at 1971 Albert St., known as Capital Pointe, will be filled.

“I've realized it's a condo for pigeons,” said Charlotte Ayers, who works at Bregg Cleaners & Tailors. “The only thing I really dislike about it is the location and the only topic of conversation."

The City of Regina said the cost to fill the hole is $2.6 million, but it does have $400,000 dollars set aside as a contingency plan in case it costs more. The bill will be sent to the owners of the land, Fortress Real Developments, but until they pay it taxpayers will have to cover the cost.

"We'll put it on the tax bill and we'll do what we can to collect tax payer's money,” said Michael Fourgere, Mayor of Regina. “This is a process we never wanted to see ourselves in. We'd rather see the site developed, no one wanted to go down this path, but the fact that we have to do this will protect the tax payer's money as much as possible, it will be on their tax roll and we will do everything we can to collect that money."

The Mayor said so far, this project hasn't been a large financial burden, but said it has taken up a lot of time.

“I would say it's more time, the time consumed to move this file forward and drive this to a decision where we finally got to today," said Fougere.

The construction on the hole will start in June and will continue until the end of October. The Mayor said the high cost to fill the hole is due to its size. Crews will also have to remove the shoring, reconstruct the sidewalks and make the area safe again.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said everyone involved definitely has some lessons to be learned from this project.

"We don’t have $2 or $3 million bucks to kick around here,” said Todd Mackay with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “We got roads that need repaving, we need a lot of projects done and tax payers have seen their taxes go up year, after year, after year, the last thing they needed was millions of dollars literally going into a hole."

As for Ayers who works next to the large hole at the corner of Victoria Ave. and Albert St., she has an idea of what she'd like to see the space turned into.

"A nice little park for employees to come and maybe have lunch, a Timmies would be excellent,” said Ayer. “Something positive for a change."